Day 4 – Tuesday
Hello again from Honduras. This morning was not raining but it was foggy. We enjoyed pancakes and watermelon, cantaloupe, mango and pineapple as well as the usual oatmeal for breakfast today. Christy Wilson led our devotional today and she was so inspirational. She talked about he who brings the good news and it is WE who are bringing the good news here to our new friends in Honduras. I love when she said: “Paul reminded the Corinthians that it doesn’t matter who preached the Gospel to you, the power is not in the messenger, it is in the MESSAGE!!!” Even when we may feel unprepared, God will give us the power to spread the good news. She encouraged us to look for an opportunity to share the gospel with someone this week.
Construction: Today was not as productive as the last two days due to the weather. It was pouring down rain when we arrived at the church. There was a much smaller crew of Honduran workers today than before which is understandable because of the rain. Besides rain, another obstacle they had was the lack of any power. They had stayed after we left last night and put up 4 crossbeams but no welding could be done today to finish the other 3. They had put on 2 sheets of tin roofing so that they could at least work on positioning the tile for the altar. After waiting for about an hour we asked Omar, our Honduran lead, if we should continue to wait to see if the rain would stop but he said we should just go back to camp. We were all very disappointed as we want to help them get this project done by Thursday. That is the goal the pastor has set and we want to do what we can to help the Honduran workers make that goal.
We left the church site and rode back to camp. When we got back to camp, Ken, the Director of Cerro de Luz had a couple of tasks we could do to help with his ministry at camp. So, half of the group went to remove 4 tree stumps while the other half set to work moving a big pile of rubble from one side of camp to the other. Some of us just couldn’t get away from a shovel!! The good thing is that rubble is much lighter than concrete! While we dug we unearthed 2 small snakes (we later found out they were harmless) one huge slug and one very shiny salamander which John Telles lovingly saved for his wife Shelly who is “collecting insects”. Ken informed us that they just bought 8 more acres of land so now they can start working on their plans to build a full size soccer field, 2 volleyball courts, 2 asphalt courts to use for basketball or other sports and an indoor rock climbing facility. His goal is to make this camp self-sufficient so that they don’t have to rely on the states for anything. Since the construction team was already at camp we got to take showers first (for a change) and relax for a while before the medical/VBS team got back to camp. When they did finally arrive around 6:45pm we clapped and cheered for them just as they had done for us last night.
VBS: The Medical and VBS team didn’t have the rain that we on the construction team experienced but it did lightly rain all day. The village that the Medical and VBS team went to today was really beautiful. They went up into the mountains on a windy dirt road which was a little scary when driving near the cliffs. They were growing corn and beans there. They had about 104 children today and a lot were under the age of 5. Games were a real challenge because of how many kids came by. The team blew bubbles with the little ones and played Frisbee and volleyball with the older ones while they waited for Medical to get set up.
Later on they played soccer, baseball, American football, and blew up balloons. The livestock (cows and horses) were running loose interrupting some of the games that were being played. Some of the adults took a walk up a hill and looked down on a beautiful valley. The kids were well behaved and very sweet. The kids were all listening intently while Hector, who is losing his voice from singing, translating and talking so much, told them a story. Hector talked about Moses and the 10 commandments - the message was who God is and His power. Roberto told the story of Jesus’ death , burial and resurrection and that He is the only way to heaven. Instead of telling the story from the bible, he pulled three kids from the audience to act out the scene so one was Jesus and 2 were the thieves. Joe and Shelly Aldrich have a great set up with the music. It is all pre-recorded in Spanish and they have huge cue cards so the kids can read and sing along – the kids have a great time with that. It was a great day with a lot of activity for the VBS group.
Medical: The group was set up at a school with a church nearby. Dental and women’s medical was in the church which had electricity. The team saw 300-400 people today and at least 250 prescriptions were given out. It was very chaotic but they had more interpreters today which made things easier. People were constantly coming through and there were so many children it was hard to know who belonged to whom. Today was the first day Lorie Woodard did cytology’s without Dr. Ruth. The common ailments were respiratory disease, diarrhea, and lice. Dr. Gates did a surgery for a man who had a fatty tumor under his arm and is going to the hospital to do another surgery tomorrow. Dental ran three chairs again today doing extractions and fillings again. This was the largest group of patients the team has received this week so it was challenging but everyone survived. The team was tired but happy when they came through the doors to the construction team cheering.
After dinner tonight, George Dozet led the group in singing this evening and Wayne accompanied him with adding sign language to the song. Then we got a special performance by George, Greg Bryant, Wayne Stacks, Steve House, and George Olsen who sang “In time on time” – it was AWESOME!! It was another long but exciting day for all three teams. God is great!!! Have a wonderful night.
Aprill Edwards